Mr. Speaker, I will therefore share my time with the hon. member for Drummond.
There is something of a paradox with the throne speech. With the House not sitting since November, we are finally able to see where the government is going.
I was very glad to have the opportunity earlier today to put questions to the health minister, to whom I wish good luck in his new duties.
We now realize that the Liberal government wants to use the health issue to do some “nation building” and to become more centralizing than ever. What the federal government has put forward is quite a paradox.
Following a suggestion made by the Bloc Quebecois and supported by the NDP, the Standing Committee on Health travelled throughout Canada these last few months to consider the issue of drug costs.
We found out that there is a huge problem with on-line drugstores. U.S. citizens are buying drugs in Canada.The problem is particularly serious in Manitoba.
Consequently, there are Americans who manage to buy drugs without a prescription. Without a prescription, people can buy drugs, which are exported under mechanisms established by online drugstores.
The federal government wants to establish a Canadian public health agency, although it is not responsible for public health. It did not, however, intervene to counter Internet or online drugstores, which threaten our drug supply in Canada and Quebec.
For example, I was talking to one of my friends who works for the Centre québécois de coordination sur le sida or CQCS. She told me that pharmaceutical companies—such as Pfizer, to name just one—threatened to impose drug quotas, because obviously they are unhappy that Canada is selling drugs to the United States, when the Americans sell those same drugs for more money.
On the one hand, the government did not intervene with regard to Internet drug sales although it is responsible for drug exports, but it is proposing to intervene in areas not under its jurisdiction by establishing a Canadian public health agency and a Canada health council.
Earlier, I was listening to the Minister of Health say that this was not something we should be concerned about. I want to voice my disagreement. Drug costs will be the number one issue facing Quebeckers and Canadians over the next few years.